


oh look at the trees and look at my face and look at a place far away from here

by hypotheticalfanfic



Category: Christian Bible (Old Testament), Kings (TV 2009)
Genre: Bible, Biblical References, Biblical Reinterpretation, F/M, Fate & Destiny, Implied/Referenced Abortion, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, POV Original Character, Prophecy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-02-23
Updated: 2016-02-23
Packaged: 2018-05-22 19:20:52
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,214
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6091405
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/hypotheticalfanfic/pseuds/hypotheticalfanfic
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Abigail knows David Shepherd before they ever meet. God's will be done.</p>
            </blockquote>





	oh look at the trees and look at my face and look at a place far away from here

She is the daughter of Daniel, a good man, and Elizabeth, a woman who could have been great if she’d been born twenty or thirty years later. When she is seventeen, she is married off to Evander, a bad man who will only ever get worse. She knows it. Her parents know it. Her sisters, wearing flowers and pasted-on smiles, know it. God in His heaven knows it, too.

Her name means “fountain of joy” if you ask her mother, and “her father’s joy” if you ask her father, and until she married she was indeed a joyful person, smiling and brilliant and unlimited. Her husband is a drunk and a fool, and she bears him no love at all. She married him young, because that is what is done in this part of Gilboa, and she bears him no sons, because the women of her country know things that need to be done. When his fumblings and bumblings (clumsy at best and vicious at worst, and so often they are at worst) manage to get her with child, Abigail reaches out to her sisters. She reaches out to round little Olivia, whose husband dotes on her like a cosseted pet. She reaches out to dark-eyed Charlotte, whose wife (in secret, in public called her friend, because while many will look the other way, others will narrow their eyes, and some things are still punishable by stoning here) never wavers. She reaches even to her own twin, Amelia, whose straight black hair and long nose so perfectly mirror her own. Amelia the celibate woman of God, Charlotte the happily partnered, Olivia the beloved wife: they send her money, names, coded messages that speak of something none of them would ever do themselves, and she finds a way to lose it, to leave it behind, to cast it away in secret. Abigail is brave, and Abigail is brilliant, and Abigail will bear Evander no sons, ever, for his foolishness and drunkenness and the seething hatred he holds toward her are as clear to her as the will of God.

As Evander mourns his childlessness, as he glares slantwise at her as though her own eyes cannot recognize disdain and mounting anger, as he begins to try other methods of taming his too-clever wife (for if she will not bear a son to him, she may at least learn to obey), he finds solace in his cups. And it is while he is in his cups that a lieutenant of the exiled Hero of Gilboa comes to him asking for food. She gives the young man wagons heaped high and bids him bring his master next time.

He brings, instead, a bolt of purple cloth and his master’s apologies. She sends back the apology, keeps the purple cloth for her wedding dress. God has shown her what is to come. David Shepherd’s boy army stands guard outside Evander’s lands, pushes back wandering bandits, and Abigail sends them wagons heaped with food. God has shown her what will happen when the golden-haired man comes to her. She sends food and water, warm blankets, books and packs of cards, and one written line for David’s eyes only: “remember your handmaiden.” They have not yet met in this plane, but Abigail has known what is to come since the moment the young lieutenant stepped on her polished floor.

When David Shepherd appears at long last, wreathed in butterflies and power, it is a moment she’s waited for her entire life without ever knowing. She sees as if in a dream the signs of God’s favor, fluttering in his wake. She hears his voice, steady and sweet, and almost reaches to touch his head like a benediction. It is the snort of the piggish man she married that brings her back, that saves her. She breathes, breathes, doesn’t reach for the beautiful man, doesn’t do anything anyone could call immoral. Not then, anyway.

But before that, there’s the altar in her father’s house, where she hears God speak as clearly as she hears her father reading from the Holy Book, as clearly as she hears her mother’s labored breaths push their way through her withering lungs, as clearly as she hears her sisters whisper and giggle and shush each other. Before that, there’s her aunts gathered in a circle, chirping and burbling like hens, telling the stories left out of God’s word, the stories Abigail will tell her own sons someday, the stories whose lesson all too often is that underestimating the young, the women, the foolish, is a death sentence and a disgrace. Before that, she is named for the feeling she will experience here and now in the presence of David, and for the sensation she will share with him when their hands meet at long last.

He is bedraggled, too thin, with darkness under his eyes and an air of desperation. His boys are hungry and tired, walking wounded, worn to the bone. Abigail throws open Evander’s gates, pours grain and wine until the boys’ stomachs are fit to burst. She brings them her own medicines, the ones she uses to hide the worst of Evander’s wrath, and anoints them with oil to warm their hearts. They look at her as if she is spun from gold, and David’s eyes rest on her more than is seemly, and Abigail is not afraid. This is God’s will, she knows it like she knows the rhythm of her own heart. She was meant for David, and he for her.

There is the small matter of her husband, of course, and of David’s wife. In Gilboa, divorce is not recognized. The only way out is their death. Abigail does not speak to David of the plan, but their eyes speak enough for them. In David, Abigail knows, she has found an honorable man, and she will not allow him to be tainted by her one true sin. Evander’s cups, his temper, the heat: it’s easy enough to arrange. David’s wife could prove an impediment, but perhaps not. The king of Gilboa has always had more leeway for wives and women than other men, and even a modestly wealthy man like Evander could get away with two wives if he put forth the effort.

Abigail searches her feelings: she will not share David lightly, will not watch him give his heart away. His body is one thing, his kingly lineage, his protection, even his affection, all of those can be shared. But his heart is hers, will be hers alone. They are meant to be, they are God’s will. She should have been his first wife, his only wife, but God’s plans cannot be foiled forever.

When, at last, she approaches David on her knees, wrapped in the roughest dress she owns, hair tangled as befits a mourning widow, he reaches a broad hand down to her. “Rise, Abigail.”

She meets his eyes as she does, and the laughter within them brings her back to herself. “My lord.”

At their wedding, they dance like children. She wears the purple cloth and her sisters throw flower petals, she sings with abandon, David kisses her sharp and strong. They have triumphed, and God is with them, and nothing can stand in their way.

**Author's Note:**

> Title from Wolf Parade's "I'll Believe in Anything":
>
>> And I could take another hit for you   
> And I could take away your trips from you   
> And I could take away the salt from your eyes   
> And take away the spitting salt in you   
> And I could give you my apologies   
> By handing over my neologies   
> And I could take away the shaking knees   
> And I could give you all the olive trees   
> Oh look at the trees and look at my face and look at a place far away from here 
> 
> Evander = Nabal


End file.
